Quick Terminal Commands with Quicksilver

Once you introduce Quicksilver into your workflow, you wonder how you ever lived without it. We’ve already covered Quicksilver Interfaces and managing to-do lists with Quicksilver, but this just skims the surface of what Quicksilver is capable of.

One of my favorite uses for Quicksilver is for running terminal commands. Doing this was never difficult, but Quicksilver is all about making common tasks even easier.

First make sure the Terminal Module is installed, this should come standard with Quicksilver.

Then invoke Quicksilver (usually Command+Space) and press . (period). The period allows you to enter free text and manipulate it with other actions.

Enter the terminal command you wish to execute. I used “ps -ef”

Hit tab and start typing “terminal.” You should see the “Run a Text Command in Terminal” action popup.

Note, it’s probably not the first item in the list, but by typing “terminal” and selecting the command manually, we’re training Quicksilver to use this word for this action.

Hit enter and boom, your command runs. Pretty easy, huh?

There are dozens (hundreds?) of Quicksilver plug-ins. In the next couple of weeks we’ll be discussing other useful plugins. So if you haven’t given Quicksilver a try because it’s over your head, give it another chance.

Start out using it as an application launcher. After daily use you’ll be eager for more advanced features, I promise!